Chapter 140: Chapter 140: A daughter

Gregoris didn’t move for a heartbeat.

Rafael watched it happen in real time: the tiny shift in his face that most people would miss because Gregoris rarely allowed emotion to exist where others could see it. His eyes had already known. Rafael could tell that much; there was no surprise in the omega part, no recalculation there.

But the second word… girl, it landed like a blow to the chest.

Gregoris’s pupils tightened, then widened, the way they did when something inside him went sharp and bright. His jaw flexed once, into something dangerously close to awe.

Rafael’s throat tightened. “You didn’t know,” he said softly.

Gregoris’s gaze stayed locked on him, intense and unblinking. “I knew Omega,” he admitted, voice low. “Not… that.”

Rafael’s mouth twitched. “You can smell secondary gender, but not…”

“Not sex,” Gregoris finished, like the correction mattered. His hand lifted, hesitated, as if he had to remember where they were, and then he placed it at Rafael’s waist anyway, warm and solid through the fabric. “A girl.”

The way he said it made it sound like a vow.

The training hall was still functioning around them – boots scuffing, a sparring pair resetting, someone breathing hard – but the center of gravity had shifted. Rafael felt it in the way the Shadows’ peripheral attention angled toward them and then immediately tried to angle away again, as if looking too long would be punishable.

Gregoris stepped closer.

Rafael opened his mouth to say something clever, something that would keep control in his hands.

Gregoris didn’t let him.

He cupped Rafael’s face with one hand, the other still at his waist, and kissed him.

Warm, claiming, and deep enough that Rafael’s thoughts scattered, deep enough that the ether in the wards seemed to hum in approval, like the building itself recognized a bond being fed.

Rafael made a sound of protest that dissolved into the kiss anyway, because his body had always been traitorous where Gregoris was concerned.

And around them… the Shadows reacted like men who had just witnessed a natural disaster begin to choose them personally.

One of them very suddenly found the floor fascinating and dropped to adjust a strap that had been fine five seconds ago.

Another pivoted toward the weapons rack with the urgent focus of a man who had just remembered he needed to inventory every blade in the Empire.

Two more turned their backs in unison, staring hard at a wall like it held a secret message from the Emperor.

A pair that had been sparring stopped mid-motion, then resumed at a pace so slow it was basically interpretive dance – anything to look busy, anything to look away, anything to make sure they could later claim with full sincerity that they had seen nothing.

Because none of them were stupid.

Rafael pulled back first, breath unsteady, cheeks warm with a mixture of anger and humiliation and the ridiculous joy that kept leaking into him against his will.

“You’re insane,” he whispered.

Gregoris’s forehead rested briefly against his, as if he couldn’t stand the distance even for a second. “We have a daughter.”

Rafael’s throat tightened at the word have. Not will. Not might.

Have.

“Four months,” Rafael corrected, trying to be practical, trying to be himself.

Gregoris’s eyes held his like the correction was irrelevant. “A daughter,” he repeated, softer this time, as if saying it again would anchor it in the world.

Rafael’s hand went to Gregoris’s wrist, fingers pressing lightly, grounding him the way Gregoris always grounded Rafael. “You’re going to scare everyone.”

Gregoris’s gaze flicked, briefly, to the room.

The Shadows froze.

Then, with the most disciplined collective effort Rafael had ever seen, every single one of them found an emergency task.

Someone started wiping down a mat that was already clean.

Someone else began re-rolling bandages that were already rolled.

A trainee jogged to the far end of the hall like his life depended on delivering a message that did not exist.

Gregoris’s mouth twitched, then his attention snapped back to Rafael with the kind of focus that made the rest of the Empire feel optional.

“They won’t be targeted,” Gregoris said, calm and terrifying. “If they remain useful.”

Rafael huffed softly, half laugh, half exasperation. “That’s not reassuring.”

“It’s policy,” Gregoris murmured, and kissed the corner of Rafael’s mouth again like he couldn’t help himself.

Rafael’s breath caught.

The room pretended to be blind.

“Come with me,” Gregoris said.

Rafael blinked. “You’re scheduled for training.”

Gregoris’s eyes darkened with offense, like Rafael had suggested he obey a minor inconvenience. “I am scheduled for my family.”

Rafael stared at him.

It wasn’t the words that shocked him.

It was how effortlessly they came out of Gregoris’s mouth, like there had never been another priority to compete with them.

Rafael swallowed, then forced himself into something like composure. “You’re going to cancel the entire session.”

Gregoris’s gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”

Rafael sighed, because of course he was. “Fine. Two minutes. I need to speak to you about something else.”

Gregoris’s hand tightened at Rafael’s waist again, protective and possessive. “The nursery.”

Rafael froze. “You…”

“I know,” Gregoris said, as if it was obvious. “You haven’t thought about it. I did.”

Rafael’s cheeks heated again. “Of course you did.”

Gregoris’s eyes softened by a fraction, and for a moment the beast was simply… a man. A man who loved too hard, who guarded with his whole body, who didn’t know how to show tenderness without making it sound like an order.

“We will make space,” he said quietly. “For her.”

Rafael’s throat tightened, the emotion threatening to break his voice.

So he did what he always did when he was close to becoming soft in front of witnesses.

He lifted his chin and said, crisply, “Then let’s go eat.”

Gregoris’s gaze warmed, pleased at the return of Rafael’s familiar sharpness. He turned his head slightly toward the training hall.

“Continue,” Gregoris said, his voice carrying like a commandment. “No mistakes.”

Every Shadow snapped straighter.

“Yes, Commander!”

Rafael stepped away, and the hall exhaled as one.

The moment Rafael’s back turned, at least three men visibly relaxed like they had narrowly escaped execution by proximity.

Rafael didn’t look back, but he could feel it – their collective relief, their frantic determination to look productive enough that Gregoris’s attention would not swing their way out of sheer overflow of emotion.

Gregoris’s hand stayed at Rafael’s waist as they walked out.

Possessive. Gentle.

And for the first time since the ghost of Delphine had tried to reach for him through paper, Rafael felt something steadier than fear settle into his bones.

A future.

A daughter.

And a beast at his side who looked like he’d just been handed the entire world.

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